What Were They Thinking?

Realizing the Benefits of CMMI

Have you ever picked up someone’s work while they were on vacation and thought to yourself, “What were they thinking?” Maybe they set up a document in an illogical way, or you can’t figure out what their scripts trigger. You may discover that they invented their own math subject because you can’t get their numbers to add up. Unfortunately, it happens more often than it should. It’s understandable that everyone has their own work style or they may have slapped something together the best they could within a limited amount of time. We get it. But there needs to be a baseline at which everyone performs.

That’s why the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is so beneficial. Organizations who follow CMMI models establish processes and procedures for tasks which are followed by everyone, for development, services, and so on. The CMMI ensures teams follow established procedures, document variances, enable future teams to replicate their work, and understand what is needed in order to fix it. The CMMI defines levels of organizational “maturity” in process definition and compliance. Organizations that advance in their maturity levels have streamlined their processes and have their goals aimed toward improvement and innovation. By following the models, organizations can reduce costs for their clients, improve product quality, and generally deliver more successful projects.

TCG is appraised at CMMI Maturity Level 2 for Service Delivery (CMMI-SVC) and Level 3 for Development (CMMI-DEV). The company continuously evaluates internal procedures, how they are being applied, and documents the lessons we have learned by going through these exercises. By applying the CMMI model in tandem with Agile, PMBoK and ISO 9001:2008 principles, TCG has streamlined and developed processes that give clients and project teams confidence about how work is done and what the work delivers. TCG has helped numerous customers and programs evaluate processes and determine better, faster, smarter ways to operate, helping clients and, by extension, taxpayers save more than $70 million.

So, if you’re using the CMMI approach, it’s okay for your co-workers to go on vacation. You shouldn’t have any issues picking up their work.